Just as a side track on healthcare ...
If (for a moment) we ignore the implications of the government taking control of a market which they don't really have the right to, and just question whether they could make positive impacts on the cost and quality of healthcare in the United States, there are still massive problems with what is currently happening in the United States. The US government has no demonstrated ability to be able to manage a healthcare system of any size efficiently with high quality results, and there is almost no chance they will be able to do it with the worlds largest healthcare system without causing more problems than they resolve.
As much as I disagree with the government taking over the healthcare system, it would make far more sense for the federal government to work with state governments to experiment on a small scale with a variety of ways to deliver low cost high quality healthcare. By doing this you would get a good idea of what works, and more importantly what doesn't work, and the end result would be information for both the public and private sector to use to keep their costs reasonable.
